"I would not let you go, my Lord,
I would not let you go,
I would not let you go, my Lord,
I would not let you go.
"Dere's room enough, dere's room enough,
Dere's room enough in de heab'nly groun',
Dere's room enough, dere's room enough,
I can't stay behin'.
"I can't stay behin', my Lord,
I can't stay behin',
I can't stay behin', my Lord,
I can't stay behin'.
"De angels march all roun' de trone,
De angels march all roun' de trone,
De angels march all roun' de trone,
I can't stay behin'.
"I can't stay behin', my Lord.
I can't stay behin',
I can't stay behin', my Lord,
I can't stay behin'.
"Dere's room enough," etc.
Other songs of the negroes are common, as, "The Wrestling Jacob," "Down
in the lonesome valley," "Roll, Jordan, roll," "Heab'n shall-a be my
home." Russell's "Diary" gives an account of these songs, as he heard
them in his evening row over Broad River, on his way to Trescot's
estate.
One of the teachers of this school is an accomplished woman from
Philadelphia. Another is from Newport, Rhode Island, where she had
prepared herself for this work by benevolent labors in teaching poor
children. The third is a young woman of African descent, of olive
complexion, finely cultured, and attuned to all beautiful sympathies, of
gentle address, and, what was specially noticeable, not possessed with
an overwrought consciousness of her race. She had read the best books,
and naturally and gracefully enriched her conversation with them. She
had enjoyed the friendship of Whittier; had been a pupil in the
Grammar-School of Salem, then in the State Normal School in that city,
then a teacher in one of the schools for white children, where she had
received only the kindest treatment both from the pupils and their
parents,--and let this be spoken to the honor of that ancient town. She
had refused a residence in Europe, where a better social life and less
unpleasant discrimination awaited her, for she would not dissever
herself from the fortunes of her people; and now, not with a superficial
sentiment, but with a profound purpose, she devotes herself to their
elevation.
At Coffin Point, on St. Helena Island, I visited a school kept by a
young woman from the town of Milton, Massachusetts, "the child of
parents passed into the skies," whose lives have both been written for
the edification of the Christian world. She teaches two schools, at
different hours in the afternoon, and with different scholars in each.
One class had read through Hillard's Second Primary Reader, and were on
a review, reading Lessons 19, 20, and 21, while I was present. Being
questioned as to the subjects of the lessons, they answered
intelligently. They recited the twos of the multiplication-table,
explained numeral letters and figures on the blackboard, and wrote
letters and figures on slates. Another teacher in the adjoining
district, a graduate of Harvard, and the son of a well-known Unitarian
clergyman of Providence, Rhode Island, has two schools, in one of which
a class of three pupils was about finishing Ellsworth's First
Progressive Reader, and another, of seven pupils, had just finished
Hillard's Second Primary Header. Another teacher, from Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on the same island, numbers one hundred pupils in his two
schools. He exercises a class in elocution, requiring the same sentence
to be repeated with different tones and inflections, and one could not
but remark the excellent imitations.
In a school at St. Helena village, where were collected the Edisto
refugees, ninety-two pupils were present as I went in. Two ladies were
engaged in teaching, assisted by Ned Loyd White, a colored man, who had
picked up clandestinely a knowledge of reading while still a slave. One
class of boys and another of girls read in the seventh chapter of St.
John, having begun this Gospel and gone thus far. They stumbled a little
on words like "unrighteousness" and "circumcision"; otherwise they got
along very well. When the Edisto refugees were brought here, in July,
1862, Ned, who is about forty or forty-five years old, and Uncle Cyrus,
a man of seventy, who also could read, gathered one hundred and fifty
children into two schools, and taught them as best they could for five
months until teachers were provided by the societies. Ned has since
received a donation from one of the societies, and is now regularly
employed on a salary. A woman comes to one of the teachers of this
school for instruction in the evening, after she has put her children to
bed. She had become interested in learning by hearing her younger sister
read when she came home from school; and when she asked to be taught,
she had learned from this sister the alphabet and some words of one
syllable. Only a small proportion of the adults are, however, learning.
On the 8th of April, I visited a school on Ladies Island, kept in a
small church on the Eustis estate, and taught by a young woman from
Kingston, Massachusetts. She had manifested much persistence in going to
this field, went with the first delegation, and still keeps the school
which she opened in March, 1862. She taught the pupils their letters.
Sixty-six were present on the day of my visit. A class of ten pupils
read the story which commences on page 86th of Hillard's Second Primary
Reader. One girl, Elsie, a full black, and rather ungainly withal, read
so rapidly that she had to be checked,--the only case of such fast
reading that I found. She assisted the teacher by taking the beginners
to a corner of the room and exercising them upon an alphabet card,
requiring them to give the names of letters taken out of their regular
order, and with the letters making words, which they were expected to
repeat after her. One class recited in Eaton's First Lessons in
Arithmetic; and two or three scholars with a rod pointed out the states,
lakes, and large rivers on the map of the United States, and also the
different continents on the map of the world, as they were called. I saw
the teacher of this school at her residence, late in the afternoon,
giving familiar instruction to some ten boys and girls, all but two
being under twelve years, who read the twenty-first chapter of the Book
of Revelation, and the story of Lazarus in the eleventh chapter of St.
John. Elsie was one of these. Seeing me taking notes, she looked archly
at the teacher, and whispered,--"he's putting me in the book"; and as
Elsie guessed, so I do. The teacher was instructing her pupils in some
dates and facts which have had much to do with our history. The
questions and answers, in which all the pupils joined, were these:--
"Where were slaves first brought to this country?"
"Virginia."
"When?"
"1620."
"Who brought them?"
"Dutchmen."
"Who came the same year to Plymouth, Massachusetts?"
"Pilgrims."
"Did they bring slaves?"
"No."
A teacher in Beaufort put these questions, to which answers were given
in a loud tone by the whole school:--
"What country do you live in?"
"United States."
"What State?"
"South Carolina."
"What island?"
"Port Royal."
"What town?"
"Beaufort."
"Who is your Governor?"
"General Saxton."
"Who is your President?"
"Abraham Lincoln."
"What has he done for you?"
"He's freed us."
There were four schools in the town of Beaufort, all of which I visited,
each having an average attendance of from sixty to ninety pupils, and
each provided with two teachers. In some of them writing was taught. But
it is unnecessary to describe them, as they were very much like the
others. There is, besides, at Beaufort an industrial school, which meets
two afternoons in a week, and is conducted by a lady from New York, with
some dozen ladies to assist her. There were present, the afternoon I
visited it, one hundred and thirteen girls from six to twenty years of
age, all plying the needle, some with pieces of patchwork, and others
with aprons, pillow-cases, or handkerchiefs.
Though I have never been on the school-committee, I accepted invitations
to address the schools on these visits, and particularly plied the
pupils with questions, so as to catch the tone of their minds; and I
have rarely heard children answer with more readiness and spirit. We had
a dialogue substantially as follows:--
"Children, what are you going to do when you grow up?"
"Going to work, Sir."
"On what?"
"Cotton and corn, Sir."
"What are you going to do with the corn?"
"Eat it."
"What are you going to do with the cotton?"
"Sell it."
"What are you going to do with the money you get for it?"